More in Movies »

A Mafia Wife Makes Lorraine Bracco a Princess

By ALEX WITCHEL

Published: September 27, 1990

Lorraine Bracco is the kind of actress people are sure they've met before. After she played Tom Berenger's put-upon wife in ''Someone to Watch Over Me,'' women cornered her on the street with their own similar stories, as if she were a friend who had somehow forgotten to return their call. And in her role in ''Goodfellas'' as perhaps the ultimate in put-upon wives - a Mafia wife - she touches a nerve with every woman who ever got past the first date.

When she calls to talk about ''Goodfellas'' from Los Angeles, where she is shooting ''Talent for the Game'' with Edward James Olmos, it is the morning - actually, early afternoon - after the film's premiere. She is lying in bed with a cup of coffee while her husband, the actor Harvey Keitel, sleeps. She is having what she terms a ''hangout day,'' and chatting is not a priority. Not only is she ''bored stiff talking about myself,'' but last night, for the first time, she realized that at the age of 35, she is about to become a star. ''So I'm the princess today,'' she says as giddily as someone can who just woke up.

Now that ''Goodfellas,'' a chilling account of life in the Mafia, has everyone connected with ''Godfather III'' losing sleep, Ms. Bracco is receiving double attention. Not only have most critics dubbed the Martin Scorsese film an instant classic, but her role as Karen Hill, the wife of the mobster Henry Hill, is also the only large female role in the film, and all eyes are on her. What most people don't appreciate, though, is how difficult it was to research the role of a Mafia wife.

'Emotional Guidelines'

''Think about it,'' she says. ''It's not like you're playing a banker so Warner Brothers can call a bank for you, and you can go watch what they do. Who are they gonna call for this? John Gotti? 'Maybe we could arrange to meet your wife. Is that possible?' It was a joke. I really tried, but I couldn't get near anyone. It's a very closed milieu.''

Ms. Bracco chose not to meet the real Karen Hill, who entered the Federal witness protection program with her husband. He turned informer and told his story to Nicholas Pileggi, who turned it into the best-selling book ''Wiseguy,'' on which ''Goodfellas'' is based.

''I made a conscious choice not to meet her,'' she says. ''I thought it would be better if the creation came from me. I used her life with her parents as an emotional guideline for the role. She was really repressed as a child, coming from an Orthodox Jewish background, and marrying Henry Hill when she was 19 was all about her breaking out and doing what she wanted to feel good. She married him and stayed with him for all the wrong reasons. She was a mentally abused woman who felt she had no place to go. She would have considered divorce more of a failure than a salvation.'' (The real Karen Hill filed for divorce in 1989.) No matter what their husbands' professions may be, many women will identify with Karen, excluded from sharing Henry's work, trapped in a claustrophobic marriage and a life style where the only people they see are fellow gangsters and their wives. And Ms. Bracco's acting style - a direct, raw approach that lacks mannerisms or what she says her former teacher Stella Adler calls ''cutesy-pootsy acting,'' makes her dilemma even more poignant.

It was the same approach that made her so memorable in ''Someone to Watch Over Me.'' She played a Queens housewife whose husband is a cop assigned to protect a rich, beautiful young woman, with whom he has an affair. When Ms. Bracco throws him out and he begs to come back, he must do so on her terms.

''I loved it when women came up to me and said, 'I wish I did it like you,' '' she says. ''I would tell them, 'Thanks. The next time, you will.' ''

Ms. Bracco is somewhat of an authority on life lessons. A daughter of an Italian father, a wholesaler at the Fulton Fish Market, and his British war bride, she grew up in Westbury, L.I., the second of three children. Her younger sister, the actress Elizabeth Bracco, is married to the actor Aidan Quinn. Her brother, Sal, she says, works for a company that makes surgical equipment.

At the age of 19, Ms. Bracco moved to Paris to become a Wilhelmina model, and she stayed for 10 years. She acted in some Lina Wertmuller films (''Camorra''), worked as a disk jockey for Radio Luxembourg and produced a fashion special for French television. She married a French actor, Daniel Guerard, and had a daughter, Margaux (who plays one of her daughters in ''Goodfellas'').

The couple soon divorced, and Ms. Bracco met Mr. Keitel in Paris not long after; she and a friend bumped into him on a walk, and he knew the friend. The two married a few months later and have a daughter, Stella (who also plays one of the children in the film).

The Accent Is Real

When Ms. Bracco returned to New York, she studied with both Stella Adler and the Actors Studio. ''Someone to Watch Over Me'' was her first American film, and she also appeared in ''The Dream Team'' and ''Sing.'' Then Mr. Scorsese cast her in ''Goodfellas.'' Her New York accent was an asset for that film, but she started taking speech lessons at about the same time.

''After 'Someone to Watch Over Me,' '' she says, ''my agents thought it would be a good idea to take speech because they didn't want me to be upset if a fantastic role came along and I was disqualified by my accent. So I've spent the last year learning standard English. I was born in Brooklyn, raised on Long Island, lived in Paris. When I first spoke for all these speech experts, they would say, 'I can't pinpoint it. I know it's from the East. Just keep talking.' It blew them away. And I thought, 'If you can't figure it out, how can I fix it?' ''Anyway, it's really boring work. You repeat words over and over, learn how the lips work, how to re-place your tongue from where you're used to. It's hard to break patterns, but I'm ready to do it, take on a new kind of role.''

Her voice lifts. ''I'm feeling now that everything could be possible, and I never thought I could ever say that.'' She pauses. ''After all the hard work, with so many people turning you down. You just have to keep going, keep saying, 'My work is good. You have to see that.' ''

It would seem they finally have.

Photo: Lorraine Bracco and Ray Liotta in a scene from ''Goodfellas.'' (Warner Brothers)